Could Mcdaniels be on the move?
Offensive coordinator may eye head coaching gig
There’s a rule the Patriots have with the media. Don’t compare.
Every player, coach and experience is unique. Treat them as such. If you compare, a trip to Bill Belichick’s office might follow.
But what about when Belichick breaks his own rule? Because on Friday morning, that’s exactly what he did, comparing offensive coordinator Josh Mcdaniels to the coach he respects most in all of football.
“This is kind of like (Nick) Saban when we were in Cleveland,” Belichick began. “Nick knew what every player on the field was doing. He knew what the guard keys were. He knew what the running back was keying. He knew what the nose guard was doing. He knew what everybody on the field was doing, and Josh is kind of the same way.
“He knows what all 11 guys are doing on offense — what their keys are, what their adjustments are and all that — and he knows defensively how the guy is taught to play certain blocks or routes or reads and how to attack them.”
Since their Browns staff scattered in the mid-90s, Belichick and Saban have remained close, but never worked together again. Mcdaniels’ work this season begs the question whether he and Belichick are heading for a split, too.
Mcdaniels, 45, has interviewed for head-coaching positions each of the last five offseasons, including 2018 when he famously left the Colts at the altar. None of those interviews followed a coaching performance quite like the show he’s pulling the strings on now.
Mcdaniels is rapidly developing a rookie quarterback whom teammates already respect and see as a fellow veteran. Not just any rookie, but in the league’s eyes, the fifth-best passer of his draft class. Mac Jones is now the second-best bet to win Rookie of the Year, tracking for a 4,000-yard season as he completes 68% of his passes and leads a playoff contender.
“Josh does a good job of explaining what I need to be looking at,” Jones said
this week. “And he always guides me in the right direction.”
This season, Mcdaniels has also successfully integrated several free-agent additions. The Patriots are averaging 35 points per game over their threegame win streak, the second-highest average in football. Mcdaniels quickly earned the trust of his newest veterans, who sung his praises in training camp and grew even louder in Week 3.
“He’s super intelligent,” Pats wide receiver Nelson Agholor said in September. “He puts guys in a position to be successful. And he also understands not only protection, blitzes, coverages, he looks at the whole thing. He, as an O.C., can understand how the defenses are attacking you at all three levels.
“So I definitely — being here and watching him, that’s something I have a lot of respect for.”
More recently, Mcdaniels has juggled injuries to his backfield and offensive line. Without longtime third-down back James White, the Pats have leaned heavily on core special teamer Brandon Bolden, the only running back the staff seems to trust in pass protection. Bolden may even be the team’s featured back Sunday, with Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson missing practices this week.
Bolden remembers McDaniels molding him as an undrafted rookie in 2012, when he was hardly expected to make the roster. Instead, with the help of his offensive coordinator and running backs coach Ivan Fears, Bolden has become a mainstay in New England.
“(Mcdaniels) really makes the game as easy as possible for a lot of people,” Bolden said Friday.
The 31-year-old back
later explained a key to Mcdaniels’ success is the trust he grows with players by showing trust in them; a skill separate from having football intelligence that can often transcend Xs and Os.
“Trusting us with the ball, trusting us with certain assignments and things like that,” Bolden explained. “Like I said, Josh is one of the people that helped me become the player I am today, because when I first got here I didn’t know what he was talking about when it comes to (pass protection) rules and things like that. And the more I got to meet with him ... I learned how to think as an offensiveminded coach.”
Meanwhile, Mcdaniels has learned to think like Belichick.
On Friday, Belichick said he can’t count the number of times he’s approached his offensive coordinator on game days with a suggestion or questions, only to find Mcdaniels has already implemented his idea or solved the problem. Belichick emphasized Mcdaniels doesn’t have any weaknesses as a coach.
“I’ve learned a lot from Josh. I really have,” Belichick said. “He really excels in every area. I don’t think it’s any one thing — play-calling, fundamentals, strategy. It’s really all of them.”
Now armed with requisite talent to win, Mcdaniels has begun to dissolve defenses again; like a well-respected chess player handed a complete board. The Pats have scored at least 24 points in every game the past five weeks. In Week 7, Jets coach Robert Saleh offered an unprompted assessment of Mcdaniels before traveling to play the Patriots in Foxboro.
“Josh Mcdaniels is one of the best coordinators in all of football, as it pertains to finding your runpass weakness,” Saleh said. “Finding the defender who’s got the hardest job with regard to a runpass conflict and attacking the daylights out of him.”
Four days later, the Patriots beat the Jets, 54-13
Now the trouble with Mcdaniels’ resume is in his past: the Colts controversy and getting fired after a season and a half in Denver in 2010. The NFL has overlooked his past to a degree, requesting interviews with him each of the past three years, though no franchise is known to have offered him a contract.
To land his next headcoaching job, Mcdaniels will need to distance himself from the man he was then and emphasize the job he’s doing now with Jones. He can lean on the rule his boss broke Friday.
No comparisons.